1) Shred potatoes. Place in cold water. Shred onion. Place potatoes and onion into a colander and drain well, pressing to release all liquid.

2) In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, salt, nutmeg and pepper. Add potatoes and onion to the egg mixture. Stir to combine. Add flour. Stir to combine well

3) Heat one inch deep of oil in a large heavy skillet. Using an ice cream scoop, scoop a generous ½ cup of the potato mixture to ¾ inch thick. Cook, turning over halfway through the cook time, until golden brown on both sides and cooked in the center. Remove and drain on paper towels. Served with apple sauce.

Last week, I offered some homemade latkes to my upstairs neighbor, Caitrin Kiley. As she happily ate a few (with sour cream, for which she has a slight preference over apple sauce), she casually mentioned her family’s Christmas morning tradition.

The Kileys, a Catholic family from Connecticut, have a longstanding routine. Assorted relatives sleep over on Christmas Eve, everyone gathers around the Christmas tree to open presents and then they start making breakfast, filling the house with the smell of — what else? — latkes.

How long had this been going on? I asked.

As far as Caitrin knew, her entire life.

Jewish relatives? A few, by marriage, but they don’t come on Christmas.

Some obscure Quebecois custom? Caitrin wasn’t sure. All she knew was that latkes had always been an integral part of her family’s Christmas morning.

God bless America, I thought to myself, and resolved that this merited further investigation.

In preparation for Hanukkah, I had my heart set on creating the ultimate gluten-free and vegan sufganiyot — doughnut holes digestible to all. And, after a total of three fruitless hours waiting for my dough to rise, I should have given up. I didn’t. I formed dense little balls and tossed them into the frying pan, hoping the sizzling coconut oil and general deliciousness of the doughnuts might make up for their texture. Alas, even my teenage brother wouldn’t eat them.

I was out of time, and my brother was hungry. I had promised him a sweet, Hanukkah-themed breakfast! I make a mean latke, but Yishai had his sweet tooth set on some sugar. Then it hit me: Combine the jelly doughnut with the potato pancake. My brother and I love combining foods. We call one of our claims to fame the cawffle — part cookie, part waffle. It’s two chocolate waffles with a white, coconut cream in the middle, like an Oreo. And with that memory, the sufganiyatka was born.

The next decision I had to make was what kind of oil to use. It had to be a high-quality one. Hanukkah, after all, is a celebration of oil. I chose coconut oil, in the end, because it’s an extremely stable oil with a high smoke point. In other words, its chemistry doesn’t change when heated, like that of olive oil, making it a healthier choice. It also tastes amazing.

When it comes down to it, you may think the sufganiyatka is just another pancake — grain-free, vegan and ultra moist and fluffy one, that is. But it’s also a festive quick fix. They look great and are a heck of a lot healthier than traditional sufganiyot.

Before I let my brother taste, we had to photograph our creation. “Are these for Pancake Monthly or something?” he asked sarcastically, searching for the best angle. “Sort of,” I told him. “They’re so pretty, I don’t want to eat them,” he said. But he did — impressively quickly for an omnivore, too. Hanukkah breakfast success.

Growing up in a Venezuelan Jewish home opting out of nightly family dinners was never an option. But every once in a while, I wished it was. Surprisingly, it wasn’t that I wanted to watch the finale of American Idol which always happened to air during dinnertime or that I would have rather had dinner at a friend’s house. Instead my occasional and mostly failed attempts at avoiding the family table came from my deep-seeded aversion to eating zucchini.

It must be a first for Baltimore: An Asian-Jewish culinary mashup, courtesy of an Italian joint and a hip local coffee shop.

Siblings Stephanie and Josh Hershkovitz, who own Hersh’s pizzeria in downtown Baltimore, are teaming with Phil Han, the Korean-American owner of sleek new cafe Dooby’s, on a June 19 Jew-sian Mashup pairing Han’s Korean barbecue with Hersh’s potato latkes. “It’s what happens when two Jews and a Japanese-influenced Korean walk into a bar,” enthuses Hersh’s web site.

“We started talking to Phil when he ate at our restaurant one night, and the idea was born,” said Stephanie Hershkovitz, a former lawyer who switched gears to food after decamping to her hometown from Brooklyn. “Phil’s place serves coffee, but with Asian influences. My brother and I are Jewish. And it just sounded like fun to put his Korean barbecue on our latkes,” which Hersh’s usually serves over Hanukkah.

Highlights of the evening’s menu will include pork-belly-stuffed Asian buns with house-made kimchi; corned beef sliders using Dooby’s brioche buns and Hersh’s meat, served with Japanese hot mustard; and noodle kugel topped with kimchi and spicy bean salad.

All of it will get washed down with brews from Union Craft Brewing, a Baltimore brand whose creators are Josh’s old Hebrew-school friends. Stephanie said she expects to sell all 40 seats for the event. “We have a fair amount of regular customers on the guest list, and I’d say most of them are not Jewish,” she said.

As winter slides in and makes itself comfy in New York for the next couple of months, locals are — as ever — on the lookout for interesting new edibles in the Hanukkah spirit, even as they pick up boxes of staunchly reliable latkes from Zabars and Russ & Daughters.

Thank goodness for 606 R&D — quite possibly the only hip new Brooklyn restaurant to be serving up a split powdered sugar donut and raspberry jam ‘sandwich’ in honor of the holiday. Not to mention a special potato pancake appetizer served with a dollop of creme fraiche and a slaw of beet, apple and celery root. And while these are definitely special holiday items, stop by 606 R&D year-round for delicious classic cake donuts (inspired by Dreesen’s Famous Donuts in the Hamptons and made by a Kickstarter-funded donut robot) and some extremely tasty latke cousins (try the carrot parsnip pancakes or the cauliflower pakoras).

So what’s the story behind the marriage of such inventive culinary whimsy with such old world Brooklyn Jewish sensibilities?

Kutsher’s is serving eight different latkes for eight nights of Hanukkah. Offerings include
pastrami smoked duck, pear butter, and sour cherry latkes” as well as a Peking duck, cucumber, scallion, and sesame hoisin variety on the last night. [Grub Street]

Holiday Dinner: Chef Jason Fox,of Commonwealth in San Francisco will be preparing a five course Jewish holiday meal on December 5th.

This is how they’re doing matzo ball soup in San Francisco this year:

First, get an overnight delivery of wood pigeon flown in fresh from Scotland. Actually, first make sure the birds were shot in the wild. With tiny buckshot pellets. Then slow poach the breast meat in a sweet, salty brine. Give it a crust of black pepper and coriander.

For the broth, make it using the pigeon bones, then reduce it by half to make it oh-so rich. As for the matzo balls, construct them with homemade matzo, fresh local eggs, toasted caraway seeds and a touch of soda water.

And there you have it: “Wood pigeon pastrami with caraway dumplings in a double consommé” — or, as chef David Bazirgan calls it, “my take on matzo ball soup.”

Only in Brooklyn: Jami Attenberg, author of the critically-acclaimed and food-heavy novel “The Middlesteins,” makes pickles with Jeffrey Yoskowitz of the Gefilteria, a “boutique purveyor of Old World Jewish foods” [Vol. 1 Brooklyn]

For many of us, Jewish holiday foods hold special meaning because we eat them only once a year. But some of these foods are worth taking a second look at beyond the holiday. They can provide wonderful opportunities for culinary invention at moments when we feel less bound by tradition. Simple, classic dishes that we have made countless times are often the best dishes for variation, particularly for beginning cooks. They provide the basic recipe structure many cooks crave, but leave room for innovation as well. Latkes fall cleanly into this category: classic, simple, delicious — and easy to reinterpret.

During Hanukkah latkes are almost always eaten at dinner, or maybe left over with lunch, but recently they have been popping up on brunch menus in New York City. Often they appear under another name, but they are latkes nonetheless. The popular brunch spot Prune calls them “potatoes rosti,” while others refer to them as hash browns, or otherwise. The pan-fried potato pancakes provide depth of flavor and crunch (and let’s be honest, a curative to Saturday night’s festivities) to any brunch plate. They also add a delightful taste of Jewish tradition to an otherwise average Sunday.

It's only been a day since Trevor Noah was appointed Jon Stewart's The Daily Show successor, and he's now being slammed for old anti-Semitic tweets.
What do you think of Noah's tweets? Let us know in the comments.

Israel's own Black Panthers once latched onto the #Passover story to challenge Ashkenazi domination. The radicals issued their own Haggadah, which mentioned strikes and injustice — but not God.

Fans of the The Daily Show are wondering how new host, Trevor Noah, will address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Well, his past posts on social media indicate he probably won’t be appearing at next year’s AIPAC conference

#Passover is now five days away. That means matzo, matzo, and more matzo — kind of a mood killer. Here are 6 things you should watch to get you revved up for Seder.

Even though it's often men who lead the Seder in traditional Jewish families, Avi Shafran believes that the Seder itself is maternal in its quality and purpose.

From our friends at Kveller.com, need something delicious for a Passover snack? How about this potato pizza kugel!

#Passover is especially meaningful — and challenging — when you're converting. Take it from Kelsey Osgood, who felt like a 'stranger in a strange land' at her first Seder.

Ex-Navy Seal Eric Greitens is plunging into the GOP primary for #Missouri governor — the same race shaken by the suicide of a candidate dogged by an anti-Jewish 'whisper campaign.'

"My cousin and I are both dating non-Jews who are considering converting. Is it wrong to ask our dad to tone down the Seder this year so they get a nicer impression of Judaism?"
Check out the advice in this week's #Seesaw: http://jd.fo/p8Jdx

In her now infamous New Yorker piece, Lena Dunham acted like an outsider looking in. Doing this made it not just unfunny but anti-Semitic, J.E. Reich says.

In Rabat, Jonathan Katz found more tolerance for Jews than he’s seen in many "clean and safe" Western cities. So why is #Morocco often described as "dirty and dangerous"?

As far as we know, Abraham Lincoln never said, "Some of my best friends are Jewish." But clearly he could have.

How does it feel to be hot on the trail of a book that some people say never existed? Just ask Niles Elliot Goldstein, who became obsessed with tracking down Bruno Schulz's long-lost novel.

Is #Passover still women’s work? The first installment of our "Who Sets the Table?" series is about to find out! You can help by letting us know how the holiday prep breaks down in your home: http://jd.fo/s85QV

Vayter / ווײַטער: A biweekly blog presenting original Yiddish articles, fiction, essays, videos and art by young writers and artists.

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